| Abstract | The article focuses on bodies set up to investigate past histories of human rights violations during the period 1974 to 1994. Since the spring of 1993, publication of the report of the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador, there has been a marked increase in interest in truth commissions. Partly as a result of the widespread attention brought to the El Salvador report, truth commissions— official bodies set up to investigate a past period of human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law— are being considered for a number of other countries now in the midst of political transition. The Truth Commission in El Salvador was the first such commission to be sponsored by, paid for, and staffed by the United Nations. The idea for this truth commission was based on the experiences of Chile and Argentina, the most well-known previous cases of national human rights commissions set up to investigate the past. Less well known, however, are at least twelve other such commissions in other countries-a total of at least fifteen such commission to date.
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